White House closes case on Signal and stands by Waltz, with key questions still unanswered

When Donald Trump selected Mike Waltz to serve as national security adviser, the choice was widely seen as win-win: A combat veteran with four Bronze Stars would bring his judgment to the White House and his deep-red Florida House district was safe in Republican hands.

When Donald Trump selected Mike Waltz to serve as national security adviser, the choice was widely seen as win-win: A combat veteran with four Bronze Stars would bring his judgment to the White House and his deep-red Florida House district was safe in Republican hands. Now, both assumptions seem far less certain, as Waltz struggles to restore his credibility inside the West Wing after an embarrassing security breach and Republicans scramble to hold onto his old seat in a special election Tuesday that will stand as one of the most significant tests of Trump’s popularity since taking office. With questions still swirling around Waltz on Monday, the White House sought to turn the page. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Trump stands by Waltz and an investigation had been closed into how the national security adviser invited The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief into a chat on an encrypted messaging app where Trump’s team discussed military plans to strike Yemen. “As the president has made very clear, Mike Waltz continues to be an important part of his national security team,” Leavitt told reporters. “This case has been closed here at the White House, as far as we are concerned. There have been steps made to ensure that something like that can, obviously, never happen again. We’re moving forward.” Leavitt declined to elaborate what steps had been taken and didn’t say whether the review – promised last week by the president, and also said to include the White House counsel’s office and Elon Musk – shed any new light onto how Jeffrey Goldberg was invited to join the chat, where Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth disclosed a highly sensitive military operation for taking out Houthi rebels in Yemen. The president’s decision to keep Waltz on board – for now, at least – does not mean that Waltz has resolved all of the questions surrounding a bizarre scandal that even the president conceded was the biggest “glitch” of the new administration. The president and other advisers were reticent to give in to a scandal, people familiar with the matter say, particularly involving The Atlantic, a magazine that Trump loathes.